-The Hindu   We condemn the attack by the Maoists on April 21 near Kerlapal village in Sukma District in Chhattisgarh, in which they killed two security guards and abducted the Sukma District Collector, Alex Paul Menon. At the time of this attack, Mr. Menon, accompanied by the security guards, was in the process of conducting Gram Swaraj Abhiyaan across the district. A few hours prior to the attack, Mr. Menon had to...

-The Hindu The kidnap of a District Collector in Chhattisgarh even as the Odisha hostage crisis remains unresolved suggests the Maoists are looking at soft ways of escalating their ongoing war against the Indian state. This targeting of non-combatants, even if they are officials or representatives of the state, must be condemned in the strongest possible terms. That it directly refutes the Maoist claim to be battling for a higher purpose...

-The Economic Times Last week's acquittal by the Patna High Court of all the accused in the Bathani Tola massacre of 1996 - in which 21 Dalits, including women and infants, were killed by members of an upper-caste/landlord militia called the Ranvir Sena, in this area of central Bihar - is shocking testimony to the ineptness, and worse, of the police and the administration in prosecuting the guilty. Given the fact that...

I recently wrote in this column about two cases where individual efforts to fight corruption and inefficient system brought results. Alas, it is fraught with difficulties and sometimes danger. Manjulaben Vaghela lives in Pardhol village in Dascroi taluka. She for past four years has been trying to get an electricity connection for her chhapra. Starting with the GEB, she has appealed to everyone concerned including the CM's secretariat. This has caused her...

Job card holders say they did not get wages   Residents of villages in Seege Gram Panchayat in Hassan taluk alleged at a social audit meet here on Saturday that there were irregularities in the implementation of schemes under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. The Bangalore-based Association for Social Transparency, Rights and Action (ASTRA), a non-governmental organisation, conducted the audit, and employees from the Department of Rural Development and Panchayat...